Olivia Hooker was 6 years old in 1921 — the year she witnessed the massacre. (Family photo)

Olivia Hooker, 103, poses at her White Plains home. Hooker is one of the last surviving witnesses of the Tulsa Race Massacre. (Michael Noble Jr. for The Washington Post

B.C. Franklin, a Greenwood lawyer and the father of famed historian John Hope Franklin, wrote a rare firsthand account of the massacre later donated to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

“The sidewalk was literally covered with burning turpentine balls,” he wrote. “For fully forty-eight hours, the fires raged and burned everything in its path and it left nothing but ashes and burned safes and trunks and the like that were stored in beautiful houses and businesses.”

On June 1, 1921, martial law was declared. Troops rounded up black men, women and children and detained them for days.

From the beginning, Anslinger conflated drug use, race, and music. “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men,” he was quoted as saying. “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.”

I have learned that it is not enough to not be a racist. It’s not enough to hate the Klan or denounce white supremacists. I am learning to become anti-racist.

Anti-racism is more of an action than a feeling. I’m learning to take action to promote equity and to call out injustice. I am learning to lean into doing my part to help this country that I love I become true to our promise of justice for all.

You may question, how do I protect my children and keep them aware at the same time? You do this by infusing their life with culture, giving them a strong sense of self, teaching them about how strong our people are, and by teaching them to be proud of every inch of who they are. Show them positive Black images in books, Black people who are accomplishing great things, take them to African-American museums and talk about what you saw, and then tell them why they are great too. You have to build up their positive sense of self because there will be plenty of people in this world who will try to tear them down. They cannot do that if you have built a strong foundation.

The governor, in his letter to the president, said it’s a “tragic irony” that so many from Guam laid down their lives and thousands more fought and bled on foreign shores in the service of America’s most cherished ideal of defending democracy, yet they cannot vote for their commander-in-chief, the American president.

The disproportionate discipline of African-American students has been extensively documented; yet the reasons for those disparities are less well understood. Drawing upon one year of middle-school disciplinary data for an urban school district, we explored three of the most commonly offered hypotheses for disproportionate discipline based on gender, race, and socioeconomic status. Racial and gender disparities in office referrals, suspensions, and expulsions were somewhat more robust than socioeconomic differences. Both racial and gender differences remained when controlling for socioeconomic status. Finally, although evidence emerged that boys engage more frequently in a broad range of disruptive behavior, there were no similar findings for race. Rather, there appeared to be a differential pattern of treatment, originating at the classroom level, wherein African-American students are referred to the office for infractions that are more subjective in interpretation. Implications for teacher training and structural reform are explored.” This was published 12/2002, (It’s been going on forever. The system is taking very few steps to stop it.)The Urban Review

There are times, like when watching footage of what happened in Charlottesville, Va., that racism bombards the senses like a virus, leaving your skin sore, your soul hardened and your spirit fatigued; a disillusioning, full-body wizening that disrupts, destroys and (occasionally) ends lives.

Can you even begin to imagine how quickly Black people would have been outed if we tried this kind of fraud. Some of these people lived in $300,000 homes. Now to turn the story away from the crooks, white media is talking about the “sickening” anti-semitic reactions coming from the white public.

These four women were charged with 60 felony counts for welfare fraud over $100,000. Let’s see how many charges the Lakewood fraud people get.

LAKEWOOD – Welfare is so widespread in the township that half of all children live in homes that receive some form of government aid, an Asbury Park Press analysis of census data found.

But one statistic stands out among all other municipalities in the state. There are 10,000 more children in households with married couples in Lakewood receiving food, income or state aid than the next closest town.

A child daycare center was also used to help hide one couple’s true income, according to the charges.

Using public records, federal complaints and interviews with law enforcement officials, the Asbury Park Press examined the puzzle works of the government assistance fraud charges.

More than $1 million flowed through limited-liability companies – legitimate corporations set up to hide ownership – that enlisted relatives as straw owners and used corporate bank accounts to hide money, according to the charges.

At the center of most transactions was a local beeper store that helped transfer money across the globe, the charges state. As the 14 suspects were claiming poverty on government documents, they took in hundreds of thousands of dollars in undeclared income from the front companies.

The paper trail shows the relative ease the families had in allegedly defrauding the government. In one case, authorities say a woman was able to withdraw $1.5 million from a company and deposit the money into her personal bank account while still collecting public assistance.

Federal criminal complaints against Shimon and Yocheved Nussbaum, of Hadassah Lane, and Mordechai and Rachel Sorotzkin, of Albert Avenue, detail how one couple – the Nussbaums – is accused of moving money between companies they controlled and the other – the Sorotzkins – simply failed to report their full income.

These four arrests, as well as another 10 on state charges, have sent shock waves through the township

In a statement issued late Wednesday and signed by Rabbi Mose Zev Weisberg, the Lakewood Vaad said it was “saddened beyond words” by the arrests, but added “As firm believers in the principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty,’ we suspend judgment until the disposition of these charges, and are comforted knowing that our judicial system is an able arbiter of justice.”

The fate of black people from 1933 to 1945 in Nazi Germany and in German-occupied territories ranged from isolation to persecution, sterilization, medical experimentation, incarceration, brutality, and murder. However, there was no systematic program for their elimination as there was for Jews and other groups

Yet another travesty perpetrated by the white people of America on a peaceful Black nation.

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The story of how the U.S. came to invade this small island nation is a shameful but largely forgotten chapter in American history.

I, Liliuokalani, by the grace of God and under the
constitution of the Hawaiian kingdom Queen, do hereby
solemnly protest against any and all acts done against
myself and the constitutional government of
the Hawaiian kingdom by certain persons claiming to
have established a Provisional Government of and for
this kingdom.

That I yield to the superior force of the United
States of America, whose Minister Plenipotentiary, His
Excellency John L. Stevens, has caused United States
troops to be landed at Honolulu, and declared tha the
would support the said Provisional Government.

Now, to avoid any collision of armed forces, and
perhaps the loss of life I do, under this protest and
impelled by said forces, yield my authority until such
time as the Government of the United States shall, upon
the facts being presented to it, undo (?) the action
of its representative, and reinstate me in the
authority which I claim as the constitutional sovereign
of the Hawaiian Islands.

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Loving the Black Perspective

My heart is so sad. I’m filled with disgust and some anger. Since I was a child I’ve asked myself “How can people be so cruel?” At one point I decided white people couldn’t be human. No other human acts so heinous.

Not one white person in this crowd would want to be treated the way Black people are treated in this country. They know how badly we are treated, they know and are all participants in that racist treatment. It ain’t ignorance we are fighting against, ‘they know”. Now we must come together and force them to stop. We will not accept it any longer.